An Outback Affair/Runaway Wife/Outback Bridegroom/Outback Surrender/Home To Eden Read Free Page B

orange. There was even a small, charming bird bath, though the bowl was cracked.
    This place is mine. It’s wonderful! Laura, who had grown up with every possible comfort, breathed aloud. A doll’s house.
    She wandered back along the path to sit down on the hot stone step, lifting her arms as if in praise of the sun. She was drawing out every moment of the peace and freedom she had been denied living with Colin. The aromatic scents of the garden and the great wilderness that lay just beyond the town were balm to her wounded heart.
    â€œPlease God, help me,” she prayed. “I can’t hide for ever.”
    There were no furnishings. She told herself she didn’t need much. She even felt a tingle of anticipation at the idea of making the cottage comfortable. And her own. She knew intellectually she was going to ground. Emotionally she felt if she didn’t hide away she was risking her life, and there were frightening statistics to back her fears. A wife-abuser was unpredictable and dangerous.
    I’m in the middle of nowhere, she thought with a tremendous sense of relief. Who could find me here in this vast landscape, so stunningly, wonderfully primitive, as though nothing has changed for countless thousands of years?
    She had fallen in love with the Outback town, a small settlement on the desert fringe. Beyond the town’s ordered perimeters lay the wild bush. What she had seen of its uniquebeauty had cast a compulsive spell on her. The amazing colours! The deep fiery red of the earth and the extraordinary rock formations; the breathtaking cobalt blue of the cloudless sky that contrasted so vividly with the blood-red soil; the myriad greens and silver-greens of the wild bush and the iridescent greens of the countless creeks and billabongs that criss-crossed the huge area.
    There was such a feeling of space and freedom she was beginning to feel a difference in herself. She was less upset, less disturbed, less fearful. She had taken the first big step to help herself. She could take another if she kept to the fore-front of her mind that a journey of a thousand miles began with the very first step. She could be what she was meant to be—a woman who had confidence in her own ability to look after herself. A woman who cared about others. A woman who took delight in friendships and her once deeply satisfying talent.
    She could start again. That meant at some point divorcing Colin, but first she would have to bring about changes in herself. She had to grow and learn, see herself as someone who could handle life’s difficulties. She had to stop for ever looking over her shoulder, as though she expected to see Colin, his arm outstretched to grab her. She had to subdue and conquer her fear of Colin.
    She knew one day, perhaps sooner than she thought, she would be free.
    Drawing her long hair over her shoulder, Laura walked back inside the cottage. She had already decided she would take it, and her mind was busy with thoughts of exactly how much furniture she would need. What would go where? Her enthusiasm for this little cottage in the back of beyond was infectious. In fact she felt quite jubilant. It was a long long time since she’d felt that.
    Laura took a little notebook out of her shoulder bag and began to scribble in it.

CHAPTER TWO
    T HE sound of a car door slamming broke his concentration. Not that the book was going so well at this point. Memories always made him suffer. Writing kept him sane.
    In this little Outback town of Koomera Crossing he was known as Evan Thompson. Loner. Man of mystery. He’d had an ironic laugh at those names. Evan Thompson wasn’t his true identity. It was a cover of sorts for his secret life as a wood worker. He’d had no apprenticeship in the trade. He’d learned in his youth from his diplomat father, who’d channelled his abundant natural skills into an avenue for relaxation.
    His father! Christian Kellerman. Killed in a terrorist attack